Medical science and technological development associated therewith have witnessed a phenomenal advancement in recent years. In spite of tremendous efforts, the anticoagulation related problems like bleeding or thrombosis are considered to be some of the challenging problems that medical professionals and technologist have been attempting to solve.
According to various prior art disclosures, oral anticoagulation in patients who receive mechanical heart valve implantation is associated with problems of valve thrombosis if anticoagulation is suboptimal or bleeding complications if prothombin time (PT) and international normalization ratios (INR) are high. Prior art literature illustrates a number of approaches for such problems. Mechanical prosthetic heart valve implantation in humans requires anticoagulation postoperatively to prevent thromboembolic events. The traditional method disclosed by the prior art of oral anticoagulation is using warfarin and it requires periodic blood testing to check prothrombin time (PT) and International normalized ratio (INR) to achieve optimal therapeutic levels of PT, INR to prevent thrombosis or bleeding. Also, patients who are on anticoagulation have restricted physical activities, avoiding contact sports that limit lifestyle to the young patients and in female patients going through pregnancy.
In addition, prior art also discloses that the implanted mechanical prosthetic heart valves are thrombogenic because of the accumulation of more positively charged ions at the site of implantation. Prior art also discloses that healthy human arteries, veins or other blood and tissue interfaces carry a negative surface charge of approximately 0.3 volt which is necessary to prevent coagulation of blood. However prior arts do not disclose the utilization of such surface charge to prevent adherence of platelets and adsorption of fibrinogen as of now.
Thus, in the light of the above mentioned background art, it is evident that, there is a need for a mechanical prosthetic heart valve assembly for the provision of surface anticoagulation, which could generate an electrostatic field of negatively charged ions thereon the surface of the housing and discs of the mechanical prosthetic heart valve. There is also a need for a mechanical prosthetic heart valve assembly for the provision of surface anticoagulation, wherein the generated electrostatic field of negatively charged ions thereon the surface of the housing and discs of the mechanical prosthetic heart valve could potentially acts as a neo-endothelium to prevent adherence of activated platelets and adsorption of fibrinogen on to the surface of the prosthetic heart valve. A mechanical prosthetic heart valve assembly for the provision of surface anticoagulation thereon is desired.